


hold our heart to mourn

by werewolfsquad



Series: last year's antlers [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Animal Death, Gen, High Honor Arthur Morgan, Spoilers, fair warning this gets sad folks, hesitate to call this a fix-it when it still gets sad but it does change aspects of the ending, if you've completed chapter six the major character death is who you think it is, no TB
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 07:19:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18089885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/werewolfsquad/pseuds/werewolfsquad
Summary: Arthur knows he isn’t coming out of Beaver Hollow alive.The writing has been on the wall for weeks, since before Guarma, even. They’re done, the whole lot of them.  Best he can hope for is to get out those still left who still have lives worth living—John, Abigail, Jack, Tilly, Sadie. For the rest of them, for himself, Dutch, Micah, Bill, even Javier if he continues to hold tight to that misplaced faith in Dutch, the only thing left to answer is how bloody it’ll get before they go.Still, he might’ve had a chance at convincing Dutch that Micah had ratted them out if John hadn’t shown up. Might’ve actually wanted to convince Dutch up until now.  But, then, John Marston always did have the worst timing.-A reimagining of the last mission in Chapter Six.





	hold our heart to mourn

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve lovingly cribbed some dialogue from the game when appropriate (& the mission shape remains mostly the same, aside from some key changes), but most of the talking is my own. I haven’t written fiction in a few years and fan fiction in much, much longer, so all I can do is present this to the world and hope you all find it engaging at the very least. Enjoy?

Arthur knows he isn’t coming out of Beaver Hollow alive.

The writing has been on the wall for weeks, since before Guarma, even. They’re done, the whole lot of them. Best he can hope for is to get out those still left who still have lives worth living—John, Abigail, Jack, Tilly, Sadie. For the rest of them, for himself, Dutch, Micah, Bill, even Javier if he continues to hold tight to that misplaced faith in Dutch, the only thing left to answer is how bloody it’ll get before they go.

Still, he might’ve had a chance at convincing Dutch that Micah had ratted them out if John hadn’t shown up. Might’ve actually wanted to convince Dutch up until now. But, then, John Marston always did have the worst timing.

Arthur’s pistol is up, pointed at Micah, and Micah has his on Arthur. Grimshaw has fallen in next to Arthur, shotgun in hand, and he’s grateful for that, but with Cleet and Joe, they’re still outnumbered. Micah had been saying something to Dutch, something predictable about how Arthur himself is the rat, that how else could he be returning alive from a Pinkerton trap, but even he shuts up momentarily when John yells Dutch’s name, when John comes stumbling up the hill.

Dutch left John to die. Arthur knows it, even before John is screaming it at Dutch, the hurt in his voice near tangible.

“My boy,” Dutch says, “I had no choice.” And he’s lying, and the lie burns in Arthur’s stomach. 

Arthur eyes John out of the corner of his vision, not turning his focus from Micah. John is a mess. Of course he is, shot in the shoulder, fell off a train, probably didn’t think to even bind the shoulder before crawling back here. Not that Arthur can blame him, of course, but at least John is alive. He can still get John out of here, get him back to his family, get him _safe_.

John starts to say something else, starts to yell at Dutch again, but Arthur cuts him off with a quiet, “John”. He steps to the side, slowly, keeping the gun on Micah, just enough for John to get the message, to slip behind Arthur and stand just behind him and Grimshaw. Not completely sheltered but less exposed.

Micah’s gun is still pointed at Arthur. Arthur intends to keep it that way.

He turns his eyes, slowly, to Dutch. “That so, Dutch? You left him behind too?”

“I _had no choice_ ,” Dutch says again, a hard edge in his tone.

“We always got choices. You told me he was _dead_.”

“I thought he was!”

“You didn’t think shit, Dutch!” There’s bite in Arthur’s voice, intentional bite. He wants Dutch to hurt, to feel the same thing he’s feeling. “Gettin’ real sick of you abandoning us.”

That’s enough to do it. Dutch steps closer to Micah, taking Micah’s side, and Arthur feels sick. Dutch is all it takes—Javier and Bill, previously watching the standoff from the sidelines, fall in with Micah too. Still unwavering. Dutch has his revolver in his hand, but it’s still pointing at the ground.

“Arthur,” Dutch says, like a warning.

Arthur eyes the clearing, eyes Micah, smug and sneering; Cleet and Joe, watching with their hands on their guns; Bill, looking at Arthur like Arthur spat in his stew; Javier, a knit in his brow but, nevertheless, staying with Dutch; Dutch, his eyes cold.

He tries one more time.

“Listen, all of you,” Arthur says, addressing the camp. “This here? This is over. Whatever we had goin’ here, whatever we were strivin’ for, it’s failed. Ain’t long until the Pinkertons try again.”

“Yeah, cowpoke, because you lead them—” Micah starts to say, but Arthur straightens his revolver, bringing it up towards Micah’s face, and Micah goes immediately silent.

“I don’t want to hear a single goddamn word out of you, you _rat_.” God, Arthur longs to put a bullet through him, to shut his mouth permanently, but that’s not his goal here. He slides his eyes over to Javier, to Bill. “It’s time for all of us to pick our sides. Me, John, Miss Grimshaw, we’re all goin’. Whoever else wants to come with, them that still have lives left to live, throw in your lot now. If you stay with the rat, wanna keep killin’ people, fine. But this is done. We’re done.”

Arthur doesn’t want to even look at Dutch. Doesn’t even want to see Dutch realize what he was saying, to see that look of betrayal again. Instead he looks at Javier. Javier, loyal, yes, but principled, but the man who became a revolutionary to help working folk. Javier, the one person left Arthur thinks maybe, _maybe_ will come to his senses. Javier looks back at Arthur. Shakes his head. No.

“Fine,” Arthur says. “We’re goin’, then.”

He gets only a half-step back. Then Dutch says, “I’m afraid can’t let you do that.” and he looks up to see Dutch leveling his own revolver at Arthur’s chest.

From next to Arthur, John says, “Dutch, are you serious?” at the same time Susan hisses, “ _Dutch Van der Linde!_ ” but Arthur holds out his free hand to quiet them. 

He can’t quite say he’s surprised, looking down the barrel of Dutch’s gun, but it still _hurts_. There’s a voice in the back of Arthur’s head, one telling him that there’s only one way this’ll end, but Arthur is beyond caring. The whole camp is now silent, bated, hanging on each word. Even Micah is waiting, fingering the trigger on his gun and smirking, sure, but silent, waiting to see who shoots first. Both guns are on Arthur, not John, not Grimshaw. Arthur’s revolver is still on Micah. Arthur keeps pushing.

“That how it’s gonna be, Dutch? You’re gonna shoot me?” Of course that was how it was going to be. Dutch would hang on to the last of what he had with an iron fist. And what didn’t yield to him, didn’t show deference, he’d destroy to show he still had the power to.

 “You expect me to let you _leave_ , after everything—” Dutch starts, but Arthur cuts him off.

“What, Dutch? What? This is _over_ , Dutch. _Micah_ sold us out, Pinkertons are at our doorstep, and you’re pointin’ a gun at me. That’s rich, real rich.”

“Arthur, _shut up_ ,” Dutch spits, in that deep, hard-edged voice reserved for threats.

Dutch is panicking, Arthur realizes. He’s hiding it well, like Dutch always does, but after twenty years Arthur knows how to recognize the cracks in Dutch’s shell. Knows to look for the whites at the corners of his eyes, the minute tremble in his trigger finger, the way Dutch is looking somewhere over Arthur’s left shoulder. Dutch won’t look him in the eyes.

He’s used to seeing this panic, this fear, when someone Dutch loves is in danger. It’s the look Dutch gets when someone is threatening his family or lovers with pain, hurt, death to, in turn, make Dutch experience that same hurt. Hosea, John, Arthur himself, once Annabelle, once Susan, once even Molly, perhaps. Or, _was_ the look he would get, at least. Now?

Well. Dutch still has the gun pointed at Arthur’s heart.

“Listen to me son, you’re giving me no choice.” 

“ _Son?_ ” Arthur says, and he can taste the venom in his own mouth. “Don’t, Dutch. You don’t got the right, not any more. We ain’t your sons.”

“Arthur—”

“ _Stop_ , Dutch, stop talkin’,” Arthur says, louder now, anger bubbling up through his chest, spilling out his mouth. “How dare you try—”

 Dutch pulls back the hammer.

There’s movement at the corner of Arthur’s eye. That fucking buck, same one that has been skittering through Arthur’s dreams and into his waking hours, is in the clearing. It’s watching him from just over Dutch’s shoulder, warm yellow light pouring through its antlers. Dutch still won’t meet his eyes.

“Arthur, don’t,” Dutch says, one last warning. Gaze pointed somewhere under Arthur’s chin.

Arthur can’t stop his mouth. “Look at me, Dutch.”

Dutch doesn’t look.

“Look at me, Dutch, _please_ ,” and it’s with all the hurt, all the desperate pleading Arthur has wanted to throw at Dutch’s feet for weeks now.

Dutch _isn’t looking_.

He says, yells this time, “Dutch _, look_ —”

—and Dutch shoots him in the stomach.

Arthur notes, with the cold clarity afforded by incoming pain, that Dutch at least has the decency to look surprised by his own trigger finger. Shock seems to be a common theme, in fact, judging by the way Javier’s face drains of color, the way Bill jumps backward just a touch. The one exception is, of course, Micah, who looks like he just stumbled across the Blackwater gold sitting in his own bedroll. Arthur should be shooting Micah, should be putting a bullet through his skull, should be keeping the last gun off of John, off of Susan, like he’d planned to do. But Arthur can’t think, but—but Dutch really shot him, didn’t he?

Arthur stumbles back a step. For a moment, not enough happens. Arthur presses his free hand to the hole in his gut, which he can still barely feel. He supposes that’s likely a bad thing. Beside him Miss Grimshaw is frozen, mouth trying to work, only shocked half-sounds coming out, but he can feel John’s hand raise, slowly grip the collar of Arthur’s jacket.

Dutch says, his voice shaking, “Arthur, you—”

And the Pinkerton bullets rip into the clearing, and, instead, too much is happening at once. 

Arthur catches, in the brief moment before John drags him into cover, Susan bringing her gun around and Micah, the quicker draw even if his gun wasn’t already in his hand, shooting her in the chest. The pain of it, the shocked pang of grief and guilt when Arthur hears her cry out, somehow hurts more than where he’s been shot. But John’s hands are on Arthur, John’s asking, frantically, “You good? You good?” and Arthur pushes the grief down and pushes John’s hands away.

“I’m _fine_ , John.” He’s not fine, but he’s still clear headed, isn’t dying quite yet. “We need to _go_.” 

“I know,” John hisses back, ducking over the crate and firing, keeping some distance between them and the myriad of guns pointing their way. Some Pinkerton is shouting in the distance, telling them to put down their guns. He can’t see, from where they are, where Dutch and Micah and the others scrambled off to. Susan isn’t moving. Blood, too much blood to be survivable, is pooling under her body.

“Caves,” Arthur says, gathering himself, gripping his pistol harder. “The second exit.”

“Can you—” 

“I can run.”

Turns out, running hurts, but Arthur grits his teeth, shoves the pain back. It’s creeping up his chest now, radiating out from his stomach in a spiral. Things are too loud—in front of him, John yelling for him to follow, behind them, Pinkertons yelling threats, for them to surrender. Bullets pinging off of rock.

Arthur thinks, briefly, about the money as they pass the wagon at the base of the cave, about how long that much cash could last John and Abigail, the life they could lead. But the Pinkertons are too close, and John has taken a bullet already. Getting him out alive, getting him to live to see his family again was the first priority.

In the tunnel up to the surface, he takes the first ledge fine. The second, he nearly loses his grip, and John grabs his jacket again, yanks him the rest of the way. “Stay with me, Arthur,” he says as both of them scramble to their feet, and Arthur can only nod.

At the top of the ladder, after John insists he go first, he stumbles. Has to press a hand against the adjacent rock face, force a breath down past the pain. Looks up, and—

The stag is _there_ , in his face. He can feel its breath on his skin, can almost reach out—

And John touches his elbow, is at his shoulder, asking, more desperate this time, “You good, Arthur?”

Arthur blinks, and the buck is gone.

“’m good,” he says, and straightens, pushing John away.

“Can’t believe—I can’t _believe_ Dutch, that he’d just…”

“Been a lot of unbelievable things the past few weeks.” 

He whistles for Buell, turns back to John.

“Abigail,” he says, before he loses more blood, before a Pinkerton bullet gets him, before he loses it completely, “Abigail’s safe, so’s Jack. They’re with Sadie at Copperhead Landing.” 

He hadn’t been looking at John’s face, but he can hear the way his voice shakes when he takes Arthur’s hand with his good arm, says, “Thank you,” and then, with just a moment of hesitation, “brother.” The gesture _hurts_ , sends a pang of regret, of what could have been, straight through his chest.

He doesn’t let go of John’s arm, pulls him back in. Makes sure he’s looking him in the eyes, makes sure he doesn’t forget it. “I want you to not look back. Like I said.” And he releases John, hand going back to his stomach, and starts towards Buell and Old Boy, just now trotting over the crest of the hill.

John is stopped in his tracks momentarily, but Arthur doesn’t wait. “Arthur, you’re comin’ with me,” he says, and then, louder, more demanding, “You’re comin’ with me, right?”

Arthur is spared finding an answer by Buell himself, the magnificent beast crossing between Arthur and John to allow Arthur to mount. He’s tossing his head, pawing at the ground. Ready.

“John, we need to move,” Arthur says, and drags himself into the saddle.

Buell and Old Boy aren’t the only ones who heard the whistle. John is barely in the saddle before a bullet whistles by Arthur’s head and Micah’s laugh pierces through the trees.

The ride is desperate, and messy. Pinkertons appear not long after Micah and Dutch do, and it’s all Arthur can do to keep in the saddle. Buell’s lope sends shooting pain down Arthur’s legs. He’s sure he’s soaking the saddle with blood.

In front of him, John is running out of options. They’re cut off on one road, John sends Old Boy down the other way. Pinkertons ambush them in that direction, John sends Old Boy up the hill. Behind them Micah is screaming, Dutch is screaming, and Arthur can’t even _think_. 

He hears Buell’s scream, knows what happened before he even hits the ground, barely even feels the way the fall jars the wound in his gut. He barely notices as he kills the Pinkertons, clears the area momentarily, because when he turns back, Hamish’s big, beautiful, temperamental stallion is dying.

John yells something about needing to move, but Arthur stumbles back to Buell anyway, kneeling by the great golden horse. The Pinkerton bullet pierced the stallion’s chest, staining his breast red, blood running fast and hot onto the ground. John shouts again, but Arthur waves him off, mumbles, “Give me a minute.”

He strokes Buell’s neck, under the mane, where he likes it, as the stallion kicks out his legs, heaves, gasps for breath. “Thank you,” he says, not even loud enough for John to hear. But Buell’s ear flicks towards him, towards the sound of his voice, and the big stallion draws one last breath before going still.

“Sorry Hamish,” Arthur mutters, rubbing a hand over his mouth and pushing himself to his feet. He brings his eyes up, and finds the buck looking at him from the crest of the hill, the pre-dawn light somehow turning its fur golden. Arthur ignores it.

“C’mon Arthur,” John says, still trying to catch his breath, “Let’s go.”

Arthur resettles his hat on his head, straightens, pushes the dull ache in his stomach down again. The stag is gone again when he looks up. “I’m coming,” he says, striding towards John. “I’m going to get you out of this bullshit if it’s the last thing I do.”

They have no choice but to keep going up. Pinkertons seem to be everywhere, cutting them off, driving them forward. John scrambles up a slope of loose rock, Arthur hot on his heels.

“Where’s Dutch?” John shouts as he rounds a boulder, and Arthur hadn’t even noticed that Dutch’s yells had disappeared.

“Probably went back for the money.” Arthur’s not sure if he believes it, if anything could shake Dutch from their trail now, but it’s a pretty lie.

He can’t help but let out a hiss of pain when he drags himself up a small ledge, and he catches the panic in John’s eyes when he grabs Arthur’s arm, hauls him to his feet again. “Keep pushing,” John says, holding onto Arthur’s arm longer than he needs to, and Arthur nods, acutely aware of his own blood soaking down his pants, of the still-wet blood saturating John’s shoulder.

They’re cornered. Arthur knows it, even as he clears a few Pinkertons from their heels, as he snaps the gun up and finds he can’t focus anymore, that his head is spinning. When they clear some space and John tries to keep running, keep scrambling higher up the cliff face, Arthur snags the back of his jacket, makes him stop.

John turns, is saying, even before he’s fully facing Arthur, “Keep pushing, Arthur, keep…” but Arthur puts a hand on his good shoulder and the words die in John’s throat.

“No,” Arthur says, and he’s leaning on John maybe too hard, maybe can’t be sure his knees won’t give out if he lets go. “No, I’d say I’m just about done. You go.”

John shakes his head. “We ain’t got time for this, Arthur _—_ ”

Arthur squeezes John’s shoulder harder, says, “John, _listen to me_. Only one of us is making it out of here, and I ain’t the one with people waiting for me. Be with your family.”

“I ain’t leaving you, Arthur.” John’ voice is pained, desperate.

“Go,” he says, releasing John’s shoulder. John tries to speak but Arthur talks over him. “John, _go_. I’ll make some noise, give you an opening, just—” and his stomach _throbs_ and he almost chokes on his words, “—just please, John. Please, for me, for Abigail, especially for Jack. They need you.”

John steps back slightly, scrapes at his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. When he speaks, it’s shaky. “Feels like we just worked it out. Now you’re asking me to throw this all away?” 

Arthur steps closer to John again. “No, John, no, never. I’m asking you to _live_. Please—look, here.” Arthur pulls his dad’s hat from his head, settles it on John’s. John looks _so young_ , looks swallowed by the hat. He makes John look him in the eyes. “You owe me, Marston. Think of it as settling a debt.”

John’s gripping his shoulder wound again, almost like it grounds him. His eyes are red. “Fine. Okay, fine, Arthur. Debt settled.” 

Arthur removes his satchel as well, drapes it around John’s neck. “Take this too. There’s money in there, John. Not as much as Dutch’s chest, but it’s something. Take it, build a new life. For me, alright?”

John takes a deep breath and says nothing, just stumbles forward and embraces Arthur, hard and shaking and hurt but firm, but alive. Arthur wraps his arms around him, shaking equally, murmurs, “Make it a good life, you hear?” 

After not long enough, Arthur pushes John away. There’s precious little time left. “Go,” he says, one last time.

And John goes, though not before tipping his head at Arthur and murmuring, “You’ll always be my brother, Arthur. Thank you. For everything.”

“I know,” Arthur says, starting up the mountain again, and gives John a half-salute as John turns and goes. The buck, standing under the single tree growing on the ledge, watches John leave. It paws at the grass, snorts, shift restlessly.

Once John is out of sight, Arthur yells for all he’s worth. He wants to be loud, wants to draw all Pinkerton attention on him. And they come all right.

And he holds well enough, half-dead but firm. Sure, his vision is blurring, getting darker around the edges, sure he can’t keep the gun straight, keeps killing men messier, more painful than he’d like, but he manages to hold, to distract, up until Micah tackles him.

“You _rat_!” Arthur is screaming the words before he knows what he’s saying, before he even feels Micah’s hand gripping the collar of his coat, before Micah swings a fist at his face. Micah’s screaming something, yelling as he punches Arthur, but Arthur can’t hear him properly over the roaring pulse in his ears.

When Micah lets up a second, Arthur seizes him by his stupid throat and _shoves_ , sends him over a ledge, ends up following him when he forgets Micah still has Arthur’s shirt in his hand. The fall jars him, sends white-hot pain shooting up his chest, but he pushes himself to his feet, squares up against Micah.

Arthur puts up a pretty good fight, all things considered. Hangs on longer than he expected to. Micah fights dirty, bloody—at one point he digs his fingers across Arthur’s stomach and the white flash across his vision makes Arthur sure he’s going to pass out. Stumbles backward and finds himself still on his feet. Breaks Micah’s nose on the next punch.

He stalls, mostly. Feels good to finally make Micah bleed, but that’s secondary to keeping him occupied, and Arthur does a pretty good job of that. Still, when he and Micah go down simultaneously, when the gun skitters from Arthur’s hand and across the stone, he finds his legs don’t let him get back up.

Instead, he crawls.

Behind him, Micah says, “Oh cowpoke, you ain’t gonna reach that gun.” Gets to his feet, Arthur can hear, says, “You ain’t. You lost, my friend.”

Arthur nearly laughs, even as he can feel his own blood, hot and wet, slide against the rock as he claws his way towards the gun, because Micah can’t see that the goalposts have changed. “In the end, Micah,” and his legs are weak but still moving, “despite my best efforts to the contrary,” his head spinning but still alive, still _pushing_ , “it turns out I’ve won.”

He gets a hand on the gun, and when a foot comes down on his hand, he knows who it is without looking up.

“It is over now, Arthur,” Dutch says, like a command. “It’s over.” 

He rolls over, just partway, so he can look Dutch in the face. His expression is tight, pained, attempting to look angry, attempting to look hard. Arthur tries one last time. He’s got nothing left to lose.

“He’s a rat, Dutch,” and the way Dutch’s expression shifts is unmistakable, guilt and pity and grief all wrapped up in one package. Because of course Dutch can see it now. “Ah, but you know he is, same as I do.”

“He’s dyin’,” Micah tries, “he’s talkin’ crazy,” but Dutch stumbles back a half-step, frees Arthur’s hand, and Arthur rolls fully onto his back, looks up at the night sky.

“Gave you all I had,” Arthur murmurs, not even sure if it’s loud enough that Dutch can hear him.

“Dutch,” Micah says, “Let’s go. We can make it. _Leave him_.” Arthur can’t even focus on his voice, can barely even hear through the pounding in his own ears, but Dutch’s cuts straight through.

“Get out.”

Arthur think’s it’s directed at him, for a moment, and almost starts to express the impossibility of the situation, before he hears Micah say, disbelieving, “What?”

“Get. _Out_.” Dutch’s voice again, and then—

One single gunshot. Hit stone, by the sound of it, but a clear enough message. Micah doesn’t say another word, just leaves the sound of knocked lose stone behind as he flees.

“You shoulda killed him,” Arthur says, unable to tilt his head back to look at Dutch. Now that he’s stopped moving, stopped pushing, the pain is getting unbearable. It’s radiating over his whole torso. His legs are numb. His fingers are numb. He wouldn’t be able to feel the stag, even if it brushed its nose up against his palm. He almost hopes the thing isn’t around anymore, that whatever it was, it’s off with John, keeping him safe.

Dutch is still there, or, at least, Arthur thinks he is. Didn’t hear him walk away, even after the gunshot and sounds of Micah scrambling away have faded. He’s not sure what Dutch is waiting for.

Black spots start to creep into the corner of his vision. “’m dying, Dutch,” he murmurs. Figures it’s worth letting Dutch know there’s not much time left.

It takes long enough for Dutch to answer that Arthur begins to believe he has walked away, lack of footsteps be damned. There’s a tremor in the edge of Dutch’s voice when, finally, Arthur hears, “I know, son.”

It’s getting hard for Arthur to force words out. “Please,” he says, hoping Dutch will take his meaning, how much he doesn’t want to be alone when he goes. After twenty years, Dutch owes him that much.

There’s another long pause. Arthur blinks, hard, trying to keep his eyes open. And then he feels arms under his shoulders, his knees, and he’s being lifted, carried like a child. Hurts, sure, but not much more than he was already hurting.

Dutch doesn’t take him far, he doesn’t think. Lies him down against the rock of the mountain, facing a pale pink sky. Sits down next to Arthur, and pulls him sideways so Arthur’s head is resting on Dutch’s leg. After a moment, he feels Dutch’s hands running through his hair.

This is familiar, and it _stings_.

When Arthur was a teenager, he used to get night terrors. He’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming, expecting to find Dutch hung, Hosea shot, or, somehow worse, wake to find that the past few years were the dream, and he was back under his father’s roof. 

Dutch and Hosea started sitting with him whenever he woke up sweating, throat raw from yelling. They’d alternate, depending on the night, never the both at once. Hosea’d read to him, Dutch would sketch, let Arthur lie next to them and listen to them breathe. Dutch would run his fingers through Arthur’s hair until Arthur finally closed his eyes, sunk back to sleep.

They’d let Arthur be soft, act like a kid, be vulnerable for the first time in his life.

Dutch wasn’t a good father, by any means. Arthur can say that for sure now. But he tried to cultivate a life for Arthur in those early years, as violent as it was, that showed Arthur his existence mattered.

“Can you see the sunrise, Arthur?” Dutch asks, and his voice is shaking.

Arthur can, even through the dark haze creeping into the corners of his vision. The clouds have cleared, shades of pink and orange and purple lighting up the grey-blue night sky. “Mm-hm,” he hums, his head heavy.

“Reminds me of that winter, up near Black Rock? Remember?” Dutch is talking just to hear his own voice, maybe, to fill the air with something that wasn’t Arthur’s pained breathing. Arthur focuses on the deep baritone, lets it soak into his head. “Hosea’d repeated some tale he’d heard about how the snowcaps on the mountains lit up when the sun rose, and John’d insisted we all wake up before the sun and watch.” 

“Did it mostly to annoy me, f’I—” Arthur starts, until a pulse of pain comes from the bullet wound, and his breath hitches out harshly, involuntarily.

“S’okay,” Dutch murmurs, instantly turning away from the memory. Dutch is soft, strokes his hair, quiets him. “S’okay, son, you’re alright.”

Maybe this is manipulation. Maybe it’s Dutch trying one last way to convince Arthur he cared before Arthur dies. Maybe it’s for show, for God or whatever higher power Dutch might crawl to, now or when Dutch nears death. Arthur can’t bring himself to care, though. If it’s manipulation, well, at least it’s also small measure of comfort.

“John made it,” Arthur says, when the pain eases enough for speech. “He’s gone.”

Dutch’s hand pauses on his head, warm and still as Dutch, presumably, considers John escaping. Finally, voice unsteady, “I think I’ve been a fool, Arthur.”

“Ain’t gonna deny that.”

“I’ll let him go. Let him run. Find better than this.” Arthur’s not sure if that’s a lie or not. Dutch’s leg is tense against his cheek. In all luck, John is already far from here, anyway.

A moment of silence, a shuddering breath. Dutch starts up, “Son, I’m—” and is cut off by a crack in his own voice. Sounds to Arthur, through the fog in his brain, almost like Dutch was gonna apologize, before the moment to rethink allows him to skitter away from the words. “I,” Dutch begins again, “will mourn you, son.”

“S’real pretty, Dutch.” Arthur can no longer keep his speech from slurring. The ache in his gut is fading, feeling distant.

Dutch runs his fingers through Arthur’s hair, a ring catching on a tangle. “Go to sleep, Arthur,” he murmurs, low, soft, and gentle. “It’s okay. You can sleep now.”

Against his better judgment, Arthur is falling into sleep. His body feels heavy, immovable, his eyes hard to keep open. He hums, one last time, just to let Dutch know he heard. 

He thinks Dutch is crying.

He thinks he hears, distantly, a stag bark.

He thinks the sun is too bright in his eyes.

-

When he’s sure he can’t feel Arthur breathing anymore, Dutch removes his fingers through Arthur’s hair and stands. Unbuttons his vest, slowly. Removes it, folds it, slides it under Arthur’s head where Dutch’s leg had previously been. Gentle. Straightens. Looks Arthur over, one last time. 

And Dutch leaves.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is pulled from Kill It Kid's "Wild and Wasted Waters".
> 
> If you're sad, good news! I have a companion fic to this one that should be up right now. It acts as a fairly self-indulgent AU sequel to this AU, in which things are almost exactly the same but Arthur lives, because I also adore Arthur and think he deserves to thrive. I threw that one in the same series as this, so hopefully it's easy to find.


End file.
